Four Bros
Given most things being shut on a Sunday, we decided to make best use of the time as a driving day from Hamburg all the way up to Odense in Denmark. To break up this drive we stopped at Schleswig on the way assuming things would be closed and we would get treated to a small picturesque town.
Schleswig was in fact far more impressive than we first thought with this super cool Viking museum. A strange geopolitical result of Schleswig historically being a Viking town and only being annexed by Germany in the 19th century. (Sort of, the Holy Roman Empire is complicated) I'm sure I looked very cool posing for this picture.
As well as a killer museum, the town, Hedeby, had 5% of the buildings uncovered and rebuilt using original tools and techniques. Interestingly the town is called Haithabu in German but also Hedeby in Danish showing some cool linguistic links to the Viking invasions of Britain.
After going around the museum and site we drove round the bay to Schleswig proper and had a very nice, albeit hot, walk down the promenade to source some lunch. Pleasingly this ended with a dip in the Baltic, which was not nearly as Baltic as the term suggests.
Our day ended with hopping over the Danish border and driving past the home of Lego. We parked up along the coast on the island of Funen and were treated to a Deer enclosure just next to the car park.
On Monday we ventured deeper into Denmark and got to experience 4 enormous bridges (Bro in Danish, plural Brown, sue me) along the way. Which would have been more satisfying were they not to cost a small mortgage in tolls
On arriving in our first ever Danish city, Zini settled in for his day time snooze. Trucker arm on the window ready to assess the skills of the workmen outside.
Odense was certainly bewildering with a new language and a whole new culture. Once we'd got our heads around it and adjusted to the new less vegan reality, the historical site seeing began. A particular favourite were the bones of king Knut, the last Viking king of Denmark. Killed on the spot of the Church he was then Cannonised which is a solid case of right place right time.
Although I'm sure it didn't feel so as he was being stabbed by his soldiers that he hadn't paid. Now that's union action!
Cycling around the rest of the city we went to visit the childhood home of Hans Christian Andersen. This was surrounded by quaint medieval houses which were all treated to the lovely view of a foolish English tourist and his lack of cycling helmet.
Another of the aforementioned bridges. Very cool views. Very uncool tolls.
Gari's snoozing position was certainly less elegant than Zini's...
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